


In The Bar

by nerdypipsqueak



Series: Fictober 2019 [4]
Category: Real Person Fiction, The Mint - T. E. Lawrence
Genre: Drabble, Fictober 2019, Gen, Light Angst, T. E. Lawrence in the RAF, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 22:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20897339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdypipsqueak/pseuds/nerdypipsqueak
Summary: Fictober prompt: “I know you didn’t ask for this.”T. E. Lawrence finds a picture of himself in a bar.





	In The Bar

You wander into the dry-bar, shy but neat as a button in your blue-grey uniform. You order food, pick a table, sit, look around. There's pictures on the wall. King George. Lord Trenchard. A man dressed from head to foot in white. White robe. White headscarf, flowing down his back like a bridal veil. Hands clasped on the hilt of a golden dagger.

Could that be you?

That man looks pure, untouched, a marble pillar of silk and flesh. You are neither pure nor untouched yet somehow that man is you. 

You are that man.

You never asked for this: to see your picture in the papers, to see it hanging in a bar in an Air Force depot. All you wanted was to help, to do what's right.

The picture looks beautiful in the fireplace, its edges curling as the flames lap at it, devouring it bit by bit. 

And bit by bit, the man you once were disappears.

**Author's Note:**

> So this takes place after WWI. Lawrence had joined the RAF under an assumed name. One day he wandered into a dry-bar (the base where he was stationed had a separate bar for food and a separate bar for drinks) and found a picture of himself among the portraits hanging on the walls. Needless to say he was not thrilled and ended up burning the picture.  
This is mentioned in his second book "The Mint". Do yourselves a favour and read "The Mint". It's amazing.  
I don't actually know what the photo looked like (it's not described in "The Mint") so I picked this one:  
https://66.media.tumblr.com/8102ab8226dadfd5601f22efaae93071/cec051722584970d-49/s640x960/764b6c75cadebd5592e1862904766f3a4afd7eed.jpg


End file.
